1. Field of the Description
The present description relates, in general, to animatronic figures, and, more particularly, to systems and methods for externally actuating a passive character or figure to provide an animatronic figure that may be relatively small in size but can be moved in a realistic and believable manner.
2. Relevant Background
Animatronic figures are robotic mechanisms that are designed to reproduce the visual look and motion of characters. For example, many animatronic figures including those found in theme parks are animated with limbs that move using robotic joints. The characters provided in the form of animatronic figures may be human but are often fantastical characters that have been first created and presented to audiences in films and television programs using hand-drawn or computer graphics animation.
Providing animatronic figures that replicate the expected looks and movements of a character for an audience is an ongoing challenge for robotics engineers and designers. One major difficulty involves recreating the dynamics of motion of animated characters because in film there are no physical limitations as to what may be done or moves performed by such characters. For example, a character may twist their torso in a way that would be nearly impossible with a skeletal structure or may move an arm or leg rapidly in nearly any direction.
Further adding to the challenge of replicating such a wide range of movement and movement speeds is the fact that many of these characters have odd shapes and may be relatively small. Specifically, many of these characters are small compared to conventional robotic mechanisms or have shapes that cannot readily house cables, pulleys, and other robotic devices. In some exemplary implementations, it is desirable to provide animatronic figures to replicate characters from an animated film that have an “actual” or expected height of less than about one foot but have many articulations and move very quickly. In a specific example, it may be desirable to provide an animatronic figure in the form of a talking candle or the like that is about two feet tall with very little internal space or volume to contain or house robotic mechanisms (e.g., very skinny arms and trunk/post associated with a candelabra or other character features). However, the animatronic figure must move quickly to simulate the animated character known to observers or an audience from animated films, television programs, or video games. To date, animatronic figure designers have not been able to recreate these characters in robotic form in their true or desired scale due to the combination of size, shape, and high dynamic requirements.
In puppetry, the problems associated with small figures have been addressed using puppets that are manipulated via rods by human operators or puppeteers. In some cases, stiff wires or rods are attached to fabric hands or other portions of a puppet. The puppet may be operated from below with the wires kept relatively thin to limit their visibility. However, movement of the puppets is limited due to the simple rigid attachment to the puppet, and the resulting effect is often dependent on the skill of the puppeteer. A relatively complex form of puppetry is Japanese Bunraku. In this form of puppetry, one, two, or three puppeteers operate a single puppet using a combination of wooden rods and string-operated mechanisms to operate the legs, hands, arms, and face of a large puppet. The puppeteers wear black to artistically conceal their appearance but remain in plain sight of the audience. Such plain-sight operation is not desirable for many animatronic implementations with the complex arrangement of rods and string being better suited to very large puppets. Further, the use of live puppeteers is often too expensive, and completely automated systems are utilized to lower costs.
Hence, there remains a need for methods and systems for providing relatively small animatronic figures with large ranges of motion and desirable motion dynamics (e.g., high accelerations and velocities of the moving features or elements).